Arabic-L:LING:Foreigner Talk

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Tue 13 Feb 2001
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject: Foreigner Talk
2) Subject: Foreigner Talk
3) Subject: Foreigner Talk

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1)
Date: 13 Feb 2001
From: mughazy <mughazy at students.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Foreigner Talk

I would like to thank Waheed for bringing that issue up. However, I would like
to clarify a couple of points. First, females are referred to with masculine
forms only in contexts that call for using terms of endearment. Second, in
these contexts, males are referred to with female forms such as "Haboobti" and
"katkooti" among many others. In general, the shift of gender marking is a
pragmatic tool for endearment.
Mustafa A. Mughazy

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2)
Date: 13 Feb 2001
From: Neal and Teresa Kaloupek <khaleej at omantel.net.om>
Subject: Foreigner Talk

Greetings from the Arabian Gulf!

Foreigner-talk is a HUGE problem for those who wish to learn Arabic here. I
can't tell you how many times I've spoken what I know to be (reasonably)
good Arabic, and a local person has persisted in speaking terrible, broken
Arabic with me. I believe that this happens because of adaptation to the
huge number of foreigners, and particularly those from the Indian
Subcontinent who do not have time, resources or motivation to learn more
Arabic than is necessary to get by. Most of the native Arabic speakers here
seem very apt at changing dialects according to the person they are talking
to.

A couple of general characteristics of the local pidgen are saying
everything in third person masculine and using "fii" every few words. Some
examples that particularly stand out in my memory are as follows:

* Shortly after I arrived here (after having studied Arabic elsewhere for
several years) I walked up to some taxi drivers who were waiting for
passengers. After I greeted one he said, "wayn yarooH?"  I (confused, since
I came by myself) responded, "wayn yarooH man?", and he said, "wayn yarooH
inta?"

* I was once speaking with an elderly Omani man, and we were talking about
my wife (who had made some date bread that I had just given him a loaf of).
He asked me something about her using normal, correct grammar and when I
paused a second (because I didn't quite catch a word immediately) he
rephrased it in third-person masculine.

* During Ramadhan a few years ago I was in a shared taxi with someone from
the Indian Subcontinent as sunset approached. He was in a hurry to go home
to ifTar and repeatedly said, "ana fee sawm!" (I am fasting!) Likewise
people might say, "ana fee waj9a" (I have pain) or "ana fee mariiDH" (I am
sick).

* Many people also ask if you understand / understood what they just said by
using the word, "ma9luum?", or saying, "fee ma9luum?"

I realize that this is not the formal study that the original question
requested, but I hope it is of some help and interest.

Neal Kaloupek
Al Ain, UAE

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3)
Date: 13 Feb 2001
From:  dwilmsen <dwilmsen at aucegypt.edu>
Subject: Foreigner Talk

>One other thing to note is that Egyptian males talking to Egyptian
>females address them in the masculine

Of course Egyptian men don't ALWAYS use what I call "reverse gender reference"
(and what Elizabeth Bergman in this same forum somewhat archly called
"Cross-addressing") when referring to or addressing women.  In fact it is
pretty
rare (cf. Parkinson's Terms of Address... where he points out that it occurred
once in his voluminous data) and is used for specific purposes, like flirting,
expressing intimacy, protecting identity, etc..  A such, it would be
considered
highly inappropriate to address a woman (or anyone else) using reverse gender
reference out of place.

It does, however, occur quite frequently in addressing children.  I have a
study
about this phenomenon, which may be found as follows:

Wilmsen, David, "Cross Addressing:  Reverse Gender Reference in Cairene
Arabic,"
in Yasir Suleiman (ed..), Arabic Grammar and Arabic Linguistics.  Surrey:
Curzon
Press. 1999. pp.. 203—221

I should imagine that Fatima Basaffar will have more to say about this latter
aspect at the coming ALS conference, where she will be presenting a talk about
child-directed speech in Higazi Arabic.

One thing I did not point out in my paper was that when reverse gender
reference is used with children, it is sometimes used as a foil against envy
(il-Hasad).  The famous example of this is to be found in the film "al-Hafiid"
(The Grandson) when the mother, Karima Mokhtar, is announcing the birth of her
first grandson by saying "ti-trabba fi @izz-ak" - more-or-less 'may she be
raised while you are in your prime' (or alternatively 'in (the comfort and
security of) your wealth (or plenty)').  To which her young son responds with
disappointment -

Dr. David Wilmsen

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End of Arabic-L: 13 Feb 2001